“Facts are facts, regardless of whether or not the premier chooses to believe in them,” said NDP Anti-Racism critic and Black Caucus Chair Laura Mae Lindo. “Black, Indigenous and racialized Ontarians already faced barriers to access and worse health outcomes before the COVID-19 pandemic. Now, with the spread of COVID-19, these health inequities could be compounded by other social and economic inequities, leading to even more dire health outcomes. We need race-based data to spot infection trends and identify inequities, both to conquer COVID-19, and to better deal with future outbreaks.”The Toronto Central LHIN has been collecting this data for a decade. Doug Ford’s own Chief Medical Officer of Health has recommended its collection.

Other experts in Ontario that do believe in collecting race-based data include:

In Chicago, Black people are 30 per cent of the population but make up more than 70 per cent of the COVID-19-related deaths. On Friday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released a breakdown of COVID-19 case data by race, showing that 30 per cent of patients whose race was known were Black.